Harford County buys 129 acres for Joppatowne park

Harford County last month purchased 129 acres of open space in Joppatowne on the eastern side of Trimble Road, which will turn into Foster Branch Park.

Foster Branch Park will have permanent limited use through Maryland’s Program Open Space, a program providing financial and technical aid with planning, acquisition and development of recreation land or open areas.

“We are excited that this beautiful land, which was once planned for residential development, will become a new park for everyone to enjoy,” County Executive Bob Cassilly said of the Jan. 31 purchase in a news release. “I would like to thank our partners for helping to make this acquisition possible and I look forward to celebrating the park’s grand opening with the Joppa/Joppatowne community.”

The property is mostly wooded, and the western section used to be a produce farm. The larger eastern section shares a common boundary with the historic African American community of Dembytown and connects to Robert Copenhaver Park.

The Salvo and Vickers families, the previous owners of the property, had been longtime co-owners who purchased the property in pieces between 2002 and 2018.

Most of the property was subdivided in 2008 into 232 single-family home lots known as “Foster’s Run.” After unsuccessfully changing the property zoning, the owners pursued an additional 265 single-family home lots.

In late 2022, owners paused any work on the property to entertain the purchase of the property for public parkland.

H a r f o r d C o u n t y purchased the property for $8.6 million with funding from Maryland’s Open Space program. Along with funding from the state program, Harford Land Trust provided funding through its land preservation partnership with Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Harford has targeted the Joppa-Joppatowne Recreation Council area for additional parkland with space for a future activity center and recreation fields, the Harford county executive’s office said.

The purchased property will be managed by Harford County Parks & Recreation and is within the Joppa-Joppatowne Recreation Council area.

The Maryland Open Space program will allow the flatter western portion of the property to have recreation-related development, such as parking, bathrooms, and recreation courts and fields. However, the state requires Harford to use the remainder of the property with passive forms of recreation, such as walking trails.

More information on the park can be found through Harford Land Trust.